As non-essential retail reopens and some workers return to offices today, they may be battling with a reduced winter timetable on the Tyne and Wear Metro.

The new timetable was introduced on November 29th in order to catch up with driver training which had been halted previously due to Covid-19.

Nexus has said these reduced times will stay in place until March 2021, when new drivers can come into service.

Drivers were due to start working in November, but due to training stopping in May, this would class drivers as “under-establishment,” meaning, “poorer service to customers, with cancellations and late trains.”

This new timetable sees a half-hourly service until 7am. A 15-minute service will be held from 7am-6pm, with a train arriving every 7-8 minutes.
A 20-minute service will then be held from 6pm onwards.

Nexus has since recruited 30 new Metro drivers, who it hopes will start working in the spring, allowing a return to normal service.

“Nobody wants to reduce services,” Chris Carson, Metro operations director, said in a recent video on Tyne and Wear Metro’s Facebook page. “And this is not a decision that Nexus has taken lightly.”

“And we really apologise to our customers for any inconvenience that this may cause,” Carson added. “In March and April next year…we hope to return to normal timetable services.”

JesmondLocal spoke to Abi Kennedy, 27, who relies on Metro services in West Jesmond to go to a running club. “There’s a good chance my journey is going to be even longer than it already is.”

“I do feel that reducing trains during a pandemic around Christmas is a really bad move,” Kennedy added. “So many trains have been overcrowded and it’s been difficult to social distance… it’s only going to get worse.”

Nexus has advised passengers to plan their journey in advance, and check train times prior to travelling.

Ian Gowland, 55, a design architect and regular Metro user, also spoke to JesmondLocal. “The public are the least important, seldom consulted and have to suffer this desperately shoddy service year in, year out,” he said.

“The timetable has been reduced because of winter service,” Gowland added. “Yet they cannot fulfil it due to unforeseen driver service… that they have known about since February when their training and recruitment program was delayed due to Covid. Do you think they actually have managers?”

JesmondLocal contacted Nexus before publication, but did not receive a response.

*Following publication of this story, Huw Lewis, customer services director at Nexus, commented: “Our Metro stations in Jesmond will have eight trains an hour through the day and more at peak times for the next few months, which is still the most frequent rail service outside London, and four an hour in the evening and on Sundays.  

“We were unable to train drivers earlier this year because national rail industry assessment centres which new recruits must attend were not operating during the first lockdown. 

Lewis added: “We are now training a record number of 30 new drivers for 2021 to catch up,  but we will not compromise the safety of our customers by short-cutting this process. We have kept local councillors and the media fully updated on the challenge we have faced throughout the pandemic, as well as making sure customers have the latest information through station timetables, our website and apps.”

You can find out the new winter timetables here: https://www.nexus.org.uk/metro/timetables-stations